featured-image
1992 How many of your clothes have a history? We are living in an era of consumerism, characterized by mass production and by a personal happiness achieved by the consumption and by the purchase of material possessions – usually pointless pieces that we don’t need, that are giving us satisfaction when buying them. But that satisfaction eventually wears off after a few days, and so we feel the need to buy something new. We are constantly updating our wardrobe, filling it with things that are...
featured-image
“Study nature, love nature, stay close to nature. It will never fail you.” – Frank Lloyd Wright The Victoria and Albert Museum in London homes an exhibition that looks at the relationship between fashion and the natural world: Fashioned from nature. May the Guru add, a complex and ever-evolving one; as fashion echoes the inspiration and rapport between clothes and the environment (flora and fauna), it has also had an impact on nature. So, the Guru walked through this exhibition where she was awaiting the...
featured-image
“I have always believed that fashion was not only to make women more beautiful, but also to reassure them, give them confidence”. – Yves Saint Laurent Happy New Year my darling readers! The Guru has been working a lot but hasn’t forgotten about you. As a treat and, for you to forgive her long absence, she has brought you the epitome of the Parisian romanticism: Yves Saint Lauren.   For many years, Laurent studied fashion and took numerous classes to enhance his knowledge on designing...
featured-image
“Women, with their unfailing instinct, must have understood that I dreamed not only of making them more beautiful, but also happier. Their favour was my reward”. – Christian Dior Click here for a sneak peek of the Guru's visit! Every beginning is messy… and so is the Guru’s brain. But finally, here it is! I have been selecting the best of the images from the exhibition extraordinaire in Musee des arts decoratifs in Paris: Christian Dior, Designer of dreams. This woman was for several days...
featured-image
As we approach REMIX 2018, we wanted to showcase some of our recent success stories from the past few years of the REMIX Design Competition to present the opportunities available for potential applicants looking to participate in future shows. We have seen past finalists who participated in recent years go on to work for labels such as Dolce & Gabbana and also see their own brand present in the international fashion weeks.   When did you first get into fashion and why? I started off...
featured-image
Cold winter months might be a daunting prospect for some, but not for fur lovers. The more the temperature drops, the more the fur coat that has been hiding in the back of your wardrobe is begging to be worn.   Though fur is becoming increasingly versatile across the seasons, it goes without saying that fur feels most at home in Winter. Not only that, but there is simply no other material as naturally insulating – and of course stylish – as fur when it...
featured-image
“Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition”. – James Baldwin, , Giovanni’s Room People, please let the Guru know if she’s going crazy or is it just her fixation for beautiful things that make her want to just grow roots and stay forever in one place? Because that’s precisely what happened to her when visiting Saga Furs Design Centre. This place just invites you to unpack and choose in which of its cosy rooms you want to stay… to live forever!...
featured-image
“Rise stronger, reconstruct – Requiem, Lamb of God Apologies for the delay; this Guru has been quite busy. You know she loves to write but before writing everyone needs to know exactly what about. And these past weeks have been eventful… So eventful that she will be forced to split the news by bits. And she will start with the highlight of the month: her visit to Copenhagen. This place is made for the lovers of beauty, of good company, of creativity and innate coolness...
featured-image
“Haute couture is like an orchestra, for which only Balenciaga is the conducter. The rest of us are just musicians, following the directions that he gives us” – Christian Dior London couldn’t get more sophisticated than this my darlings! Balenciaga is in town. At the heart of this city, the Victoria & Albert Museum has set an exhibition that has encouraged all fashionistas, researchers and members of the public to wait for weeks just to have the pleasure of seeing closely some of the creations...
featured-image
“The Devil is in the details, but so is salvation.” – Hyman G. Rickover Finally! (Yes I know, I know). Here is the awaited list of accessories that have been tempting us to spend that little extra to style our outfit every day this Spring/ Summer season. The Guru has discovered (thanks to all her wonderful Instagram followers) little jewels that will leave you wondering how you have survived the past years without them. Some of them are new designers and some of them are...
featured-image
“Elegance is elimination.” – ― Cristobal Balenciaga. Lately, this Guru has been out and about around London: enjoying the city and all the events that have been occurring and that this fashion and lifestyle lover thought would be relevant to share with you. Today is different, the city is wet and the Guru is a bit run out because of lack of sleep (perks of motherhood) and feels a tiny bit melancholic. To help with the lack of sleep, a good coffee and to help...
featured-image
“Fashion is the armour to survive the reality of everyday life.” – ― Bill Cunningham. Morning my darlings! This Guru is full of excitement as the shooting and filming for FUR NOW 2017/18 Campaign is approaching quickly. Everyone is excited just to look at the pieces that so many of our members have generously sent from all around the world to be showcased. I wish my eyes could take pictures of the detail, the vibrant colours and patterns… Every single one of them reflects a...
featured-image
“Fawkes is a phoenix, Harry. Phoenixes burst into flame when it is time for them to die and are reborn from the ashes.” – J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Hello beautiful people! The Guru just came back from her (well-deserved) holidays and appears to continue with this self-indulgent attitude. Oh, my dearest readers and there’s no better way to lengthen this mood than by paying a visit to one of the best known and beautiful shops in London: Hockley. The Fur...
featured-image
“The tango is a direct expression of something that poets have often tried to state in words: the belief that a fight may be a celebration.” – Jorge Luis Borges.   I have always had a secret curiosity about Argentina. I find their people quite different to the rest of Latin America (in looks and in attitude). Sometimes European trades appear in them but still, they are charged with a fiery and bellicose spirit that comes only from those countries that have had to fight...
featured-image
“Certainly paradise, whatever, wherever it be, contains flaws. If it did not, it would be incapable of drawing the hearts of men or angels.” – Henry Miller, Big Sur and the Oranges of Hieronymus Bosch. She was born at the beginning of the 20th Century (1909 to be precise). Her name was a never-ending thread of six names of which she used the one of Raquel but, secretly, I always preferred the one of Rosario. She lost both her parents at a very young age...
featured-image
“How wrong is it for a woman to expect the man to build the world she wants, rather than to create it herself?” – Anais Nin. Last Wednesday was another year of celebrating the voice of women for gender parity. Oh dear! And it has been a relentless struggle to achieve it because, even though there has been progress and achievements in this fight, there are still millions of us who face the most unfortunate and undermining, the most precarious and unfair. It would be...
featured-image
“Creativity takes courage.” Henry Matisse. Buongiorno my dear followers! Yes, in case you didn’t notice, I’m still in my Italian mood. Lets not lose the momentum people! I told you last week there were still great things to come. So, I thought I would continue talking a little bit more about the rest of the highly creative group that accompanied the Fur Guru in her travels in Milan’s Fashion Week. Ladies first… Ólöf is the typical Icelander: relaxed, happy and cool (I wish you could...
featured-image
“Everybody’s youth is a dream, a form of chemical madness.” F. Scott Fitzgerald. Ciao tutti! Come va? Ha, got you! Sorry, my body is here but my brain is still running on good espresso and the most inspiring catwalks from Milan’s Fashion Week. My dearest readers; so many talented young designers surrounded this Guru! They all reminded me of the far away years of my youth when I was full of dreams, good ideas and stamina. To make my stay more idyllic, I was given...
featured-image
Ninx Flanagan, Furrier and Owner Bewitched Ltd. Facebook: facebook.com/bewitched.couture Instagram: @bewitched_couture Online shop: www.bewitchedltd.com Location: Workshop and Show room in Wiltshire, West of London.   Hello Ninx: It’s a pleasure to interview you for We Are Fur. Hi, thank you for asking me. How did you get into the fur industry? I always loved fur and have fond memories of my parents going to dinner parties and taking my sister and I, when we were very little, in sleeping bags and laying us down with...
featured-image
“Got it from the top, it's nothing you can stop Lord, you know they made a fine connection.” —They Love Each Other, Grateful Dead   I have always thought that a connection is a difficult thing to find. You have to be extremely lucky to find a person or a group of people in the same place and time that gets you immediately. No explanation required; in the moment you are together, amazing stuff happens. It was while watching a Grateful Dead documentary that I...
featured-image
13 January Ermenegildo Zegna: Milan’s Fashion Week Menswear started with a surfeit of examples of the new trends for this FW17. The fashionistas continued to see athleisure attires and beautiful outfits that mixed cropped pants and fitted sweaters for FW17 as seen on the runways at Ports 1961 with their heavily embellished sweatshirt and Ermenegildo Zegna with its stitched padded jacket. The brand’s first ever overall artistic director, Alessandro Sartori, established a whole collection based on the continuing casualization of menswear. Sartori’s visual declaration to the...
featured-image
08 January Grace Wales Bonner: Directly from the South-East of London, Wales Bonner pursued to turn the average into something astonishing with street-wear raised to new and exhilarating apices.   Wales talked about the sentiment behind this collection and this emotion could be felt in every aspect of the show: the inspiring display of clothes, the miscellany of those who walked in this new story that talks about a young generation full of variations, backgrounds and cultures from all around the world. In a choreographic...
featured-image
06 January 2017 Bobby Abley: Securely established and straightaway recognisable the unstoppable force of the Bobby Abley show continued to surprise us with its inimitable charm, waggishness and humour, blending yearning and light-hearted imagery with a contemporary menswear design. Pop culture (splashing Disney cartoon characters, Louis Vuitton-style logos and Muppet-like fur), a favourite theme of Bobby Abley’s inspiration has given way this catwalk to a memory that affected his childhood and those of his generation: the kids action cartoon Mighty Morphing Power Rangers, from 1993....
featured-image
The Bear: —From Pliny the Elder [1st century CE] (Natural History, Book 8, 54):   “Bears mate at the beginning of winter, after which the male and female retire to separate caves. The cubs are born thirty days later, in a litter of no more than five. Newborn cubs are a shapeless lump of white flesh, with no eyes or hair, though the claws are visible. The mother bear gradually licks her cubs into their proper shape, and keeps them warm by hugging them to...
featured-image
“Listen to the voice of nature, for it holds treasures for you.” - Native North American Saying.   Called “the accessory of the season” by The Observer, Nina Cheng’s beautiful fur smartphone cases have brought back to the paths of the trendsetters and fashionistas the tradition and craftsmanship of our industry.We splash out hundreds of pounds on a new smartphone, it would be wild not to spend a little more in order to make sure it doesn’t get scratched or broken. But Chen’s work goes...
featured-image
The Salamander: —From Isidore of Seville [7th century CE] (Etymologies, Book 12, 4:36):   “The salamander alone of animals puts out fires; it can live in fire without pain and without being burned. Of all the venomous animals its strength is the greatest because it kills many at once. If it crawls into a tree it poisons all of the fruit, and anyone who eats the fruit will die; if it falls in a well it poisons the water so that any who drink it...
featured-image
WelFur is a new scheme developed to ensure animal welfare is a priority before fur pelts reach the auction houses. The program is entirely voluntary, although the auction houses will not sell furs that are not WelFur certified from 2020 onward. The scientist Jens Malmkvist from Aarhus University in Denmark is one of the scientists developing the new standards in fur farming. The scientists and veterinarians involved in the process are non-biased and unpaid from the fur farms. They are sponsored through the governments. "It...
featured-image
London, 16th of June 2016 – Data unveiled today shows that 2015 was yet another successful year for the global fur sector – thanks to the continuing demand from fashion and interiors brands for mink, fox, chinchilla and sable among other fur types. In 2015, 71.27 million mink pelts were produced globally with a total value of $3.57bn*. There were also 8.93 million fox pelts with a value of more than $1.17bn*. This information from the International Fur Federation (IFF) shows the global reach of...
featured-image
Phillip Plein Fur His brazen attitude is reflected on the runway. Is it possible to be brash, somewhat taboo, a bit explicit and somewhat classy all at once? Philipp Plein’s brand goes over the top with some of the latest jackets available for pre-order priced around €87,000. Rumours are that he’s not rich despite the Lamborghini Aventador, the Rolls-Royce Wraith and residences in Cannes, Lugano, and Manhattan. His doctor father gave him a €10,000 loan to build a simple interior design piece betwixt luxury product....
featured-image
New York Fashion Week, or NYFW Fall 2016- Winter 2017 as it’s now affectionately referred to, kicked off amidst in-depth conversations about the future of the fashion show concept.  The impact of social media and the rise of fast fashion have changed consumer attitudes and many in the industry are questioning the value of the traditional runway show.  The presentations this week have been watched closely, as much for the fashions on display as for the reactions and responses from the buyers, editors and other...
X
Send this to a friend